Click any syllable to hear it inside a real Chinese word — not a robotic single sound. Then master tones, sandhi and spelling with visual guides and listening quizzes.
💡 Greyed cells are extremely rare syllables. Blank cells are combinations that do not exist in standard Mandarin.
Tones change in natural speech. Three rules cover 90% of cases:
| Written | Actually spoken | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| nǐ hǎo | ní hǎo | hello |
| kěyǐ | kéyǐ | can / may |
| wǒ hěn hǎo | wó hén hǎo | I'm fine (chain sandhi) |
| bù shì → bú shì | bù duì → bú duì | bù qù (stays bù) |
| Before tone | Spoken as | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1st / 2nd / 3rd | 4th tone yì | yì tiān (one day) |
| 4th tone | 2nd tone yí | yí ge (one) |
| standalone / counting | 1st tone yī | yī, èr, sān |
| Group | Letters | Tips |
|---|---|---|
| Lip sounds | b p m f | like English, but p/t/k are a strong puff, b/d/g are soft (unaspirated) |
| Tongue-tip | d t n l | tip behind upper teeth |
| Back of tongue | g k h | h is breathy, like German "ch" |
| Tongue blade | j q x | smile-vowels — only combine with i/ü; q ≈ "ch" in "cheese" |
| Flat tongue | z c s | like "ts/cats", tongue flat |
| Curled tongue | zh ch sh r | curl tongue up; r has no English match — like French j, voiced |
| Type | Finals |
|---|---|
| Simple | a o e i u ü |
| Compound | ai ei ao ou, ia ie ua uo üe, iao iou uai uei |
| Nasal -n | an en in ün, ian uan üan uen |
| Nasal -ng | ang eng ing ong, iang uang ueng iong |
| Special | er (e.g. èr 二, érzi 儿子) |
-n is a front "nose tip" sound; -ng is a deeper back-nasal sound. Chinese speakers confuse them as often as English learners do!
Tap either word to hear the difference. Then drill them in the quiz tab.
Tip: use headphones or turn the volume up — tone quizzes train your ear, not your eyes.
Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音) is the official romanization of Standard Mandarin, adopted in China in 1958. It uses the Latin alphabet to spell Chinese sounds and is the standard tool for learning pronunciation, looking up words, typing Chinese on phones and computers, and teaching Mandarin abroad.
Around 400 base syllables without tones. This chart covers all 380+ standard initial-final combinations; when the four tones and neutral tone are applied they produce about 1,200 distinct sound combinations — many more than English's roughly 15,000 possible syllables, but each Chinese syllable is short and fixed.
Each syllable consists of an initial (the opening consonant — b, p, m, f… zh, ch, sh, r — 21 in total) and a final (everything after it: a vowel, diphthong, or nasal ending like -n/-ng). Syllables without a consonant, such as an or weng, are called zero-initial syllables.
Tone 1 is high and level (mā 妈 "mother"); tone 2 rises (má 麻 "hemp"); tone 3 dips down then rises (mǎ 马 "horse"); tone 4 falls sharply (mà 骂 "to scold"). There is also a short neutral tone (ma 吗). Because tones change meaning, listening drills like the ones on this page are essential.
Sandhi means tones changing in natural speech. The big three: two 3rd tones become 2nd+3rd (nǐ hǎo → ní hǎo); 不 bù becomes bú before a 4th tone (bú shì); 一 yī becomes yí before a 4th tone (yí ge) and yì before tones 1–3 (yì tiān).
After j, q, x and y the dots are dropped but the sound stays ü: ju, qu, xu, yu, jue, que, xue, yue, yuan, yun. After n and l the dots remain: nǚ, lǜ, nüè, lüè.
Most learners can read and write the chart in one to two weeks of focused study. Recognizing tones accurately under real-speech speed typically takes one to three months of 10–15 minutes of daily listening. Clicking through this chart plus the quizzes is a complete free routine.
Yes — pinyin is the bridge between sound and character. Without it you cannot pronounce a new word from a dictionary or type Chinese. The HSK 1 exam even prints pinyin above every character, so strong pinyin directly raises your test score. After pinyin, move on to scenario lessons and HSK flashcards.